January 20, 2006

Soul/R&B legend Wilson Pickett died of a heart attack today (Jan. 19) at a hospital near his Virginia home, according to a spokesperson. He was 64.

Born in Pratville, Ala., Pickett moved to Detroit as a teen and joined the Falcons, singing on their 1962 hit “I Found a Love.” By 1965, he had signed a solo deal with Atlantic, scoring a No. 21 pop hit with “In the Midnight Hour,” which he co-wrote with legendary sessions musician Steve Cropper.

A slew of late ’60s R&B/soul hits followed, including “Land of 1,000 Dances,” “Funky Broadway,” “634-5789,” “She’s Lookin’ Good” and “Mustang Sally.” As the ’70s dawned, Pickett scored three consecutive top 20 pop singles with “Engine Number 9,” “Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You” and “Don’t Knock My Love Pt. 1.”

In all, five of his singles reached No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts. Pickett associated himself with some of the top sessions musicians of the time, and was a frequent visitor to Stax and Muscle Shoals Studios. He even hired the late Duane Allman to play guitar on his 1969 cover of the Beatles’ “Hey Jude.”

Pickett recorded regularly into the mid 1980s and was a 1991 inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That year, his career was revived thanks to the film “The Commitments,” which followed an unknown Irish soul band of the same name pursuing its dream of performing with Pickett. The artist also joined the band for performances at the Los Angeles and New York film premieres.

The artist’s last studio album, 1999’s “It’s Harder Now,” won WC Handy Awards for soul/blues album of the year and comeback album of the year, while Pickett was named soul/blues male artist of the year.

Pickett is survived by his fiance and four children. He will be buried beside his mother Lena in Louisville, Ky.

Source billboard.com.

Rock duo Ween will continue work on its next studio album at a new studio set up in a 200-year-old farmhouse in Pennsylvania. “I think it’s like the fourth farmhouse we’ve occupied over the years but we seem to have good luck in them at least,” guitarist Mickey “Dean Ween” Melchiondo writes on Ween’s Web site. “Our plan is to continue writing and recording new tunes while also being more active on the road this year.”

Melchiondo says touring will most likely not begin until April but that Ween is hoping its workload will be “more aggressive” in 2006. “We’re gonna try and find the balance between recording and touring, we really didn’t do enough of either last year.”

The new album will be the follow-up to 2003’s “Quebec” (Sanctuary). Last year, the group issued a collection of unreleased studio tracks, “Shinola,” via its own Chocodog imprint. “We’re talking about trying out some different ideas with the next Ween release on Chocodog, maybe a bunch of 45s or something,” Melchiondo says.

Also percolating from the label is a spring album by Chris Harford, produced by Melchiondo and featuring a guest spot by Ween vocalist Aaron “Gene Ween” Freeman. Harford and Melchiondo played all the instruments during the sessions.

Source billboard.com.

The Flaming Lips have set the track list for their upcoming album, “At War With the Mystics.” Due April 4 via Warner Bros., the 12-track set is led by the single “The W.A.N.D.,” which is available now from leading digital download stores.

Among the songs that made the cut for the follow-up to 2002’s “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” is “Mr. Ambulance Driver,” which first appeared on last summer’s “Wedding Crashers” soundtrack. “It is connected to some powerful stuff,” Lips leader Wayne Coyne tells Billboard.com of the track. “Every time I hear it, I think Flaming Lips fans will get it and like it. The metaphors and the ideas in the waiting for the ambulance or something to come and save you still hit me.”

Coyne previously said album opener “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” reminded him “almost [of] an MC5 thing, but it’s not talking about external things. It’s talking about the power within you. What would you do if you had the power?”

In terms of an overall sound for the project, Coyne said, “There are some tracks we’ve delved into production-wise, where we’re trying to get some of that heavy rock’n’roll with heavy guitar riffs, but not just to be aggressive. On the last couple of records, we’ve tried to be more expressive in beautiful ways. But sometimes, volume and intensity are great too.”

“At War With the Mystics” will also be available as a special edition with a bonus DVD featuring extra tracks, videos and a 5.1 audio mix. The same treatment is being afforded to the Lips’ 1999 album “The Soft Bulletin,” which will be reissued Jan. 31 via Warner Bros.

Here is the track list for “At War With the Mystics”:

“The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song”
“Free Radicals”
“The Sound of Failure/It’s Dark…Is it Always This Dark??”
“My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion”
“Vein of Stars”
“The Wizard Turns On…”
“It Overtakes Me/The Stars Are So Big, I Am So Small…Do I Stand a Chance?”
“Mr. Ambulance Driver”
“Haven’t Got a Clue”
“The W.A.N.D.”
“Pompeii Am Gotterdammerung”
“Goin’ On”

Source billboard.com.

The live footage shot by the Black Crowes during a multiple-night August 2005 stand at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium will finally see the light of day this spring. Due March 21 via Eagle Vision, the DVD “Freak ‘N’ Roll … Into the Fog” rounds up 19 tracks from those shows, four of which were previously released in their entirety by Instant Live.

Songs are drawn from all the Crowes’ six studio releases, from hits like “Remedy,” “Hard To Handle,” “She Talks to Angels” and “Sting Me” to more obscure fare like “Let Me Share the Ride,” “Sunday Night Buttermilk Waltz” and opener “(Only) Halfway to Everywhere.” The show ends with a cover of the Band’s “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down.”

The Crowes have been off the road since their New Year’s Eve show at New York’s Madison Square Garden, but will return to live duty Jan. 29 in Orlando, Fla. The group will then pause until a March 12 appearance at the Langerado Music Festival in Sunrise, Fla., ahead of a five-date swing through London (March 18-19) and Amsterdam (March 22-24).

Here is the track list for “Freak ‘N’ Roll … Into the Fog”:

“(Only) Halfway to Everywhere”
“Sting Me”

“No Speak No Slave”
“Soul Singing”
“Welcome to the Goodtimes”
“Jealous Again”
“Space Captain”
“My Morning Song”
“Sunday Night Buttermilk Waltz”
“Cursed Diamond”
“She Talks to Angels”
“Wiser Time”
“Non Fiction”
“Seeing Things”
“Hard To Handle”
“Let Me Share the Ride”
“Mellow Down Easy”
“Remedy”
“The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down”

Source billboard.com.